FDA slow to improve import food safety: ex officials

FDA slow to improve import food safety: ex officials
By Christopher Doering

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ignored hundreds of proposals that could have improved the safety of food imported into the United States, former FDA officials told a House Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday.

The FDA is in charge of 80 percent of the U.S. food supply, mostly fruits and vegetables, and has been criticized as being too passive in handling the growing surge of imports into the United States. Total imports, including food, total $2 trillion annually.

"FDA has failed to implement literally hundreds of proposed solutions to specific import problems, which would have enabled the FDA to begin to progressively focus its limited resources where the risks are indeed the greatest," said Benjamin England, a former FDA official who co-founded a consulting firm that helps foreign and U.S. companies meet FDA import rules.

The proposals were made more than four years ago in FDA's Import Strategic Plan that deals with the import of food, drugs and products from other countries.

Rosa DeLauro, who chairs the U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the FDA, said she was surprised by how "frivolously (FDA) allowed these recommendations to go by the board."

"It was alarming to discover today that even with the significant problems the country is facing with imported foods, the FDA lacks a formal process that evaluates the food safety systems of other countries," said the Connecticut Democrat.

England and former FDA employee Carl Nielsen said the pressure is on FDA to direct most of its resources toward domestic food safety. They said FDA lacks enough real-time data on imports and relies mostly on invoices, shipping manifests and other documents that lack information such as where the product was made, the ingredients or process used.

Although food imports grow at 15 percent a year, FDA inspected just 1.3 percent of the goods under its purview in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006.

In particular, the safety of food and other Chinese products have come under attack in recent months after reports of seafood containing banned antibiotics, contaminated toothpaste and melamine, a chemical used in plastics and fertilizers, being found in U.S. pet food.

Asked by DeLauro whether the FDA needed more authority to do its job, Dr. David Acheson, FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection, responded: "I believe we do."

U.S. food companies, concerned the recent import scares may turn away consumers, have asked for tougher government guidelines on how companies verify imported foods or inputs; along with more money given to the FDA, widely seen as understaffed and underfunded.

"The food supply has become so globalized," said Joseph Levitt, a former 25-year veteran of the FDA, who now represents the Grocery Manufacturers Association/Food Products Association. "Our unique problem is just how large we are."

The Bush administration also has established a panel to recommend steps to ensure the safety of imports in an effort to restore public confidence. The detailed recommendations are expected in November.

"The time is right for Congress to act on reforming the country's food safety laws," said Caroline Smith DeWall, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest's food safety program.

She noted a survey by the Food Marketing Institute that showed consumer confidence in food they got from stores and restaurants last year declined 16 percent.

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Popcorn lung bill heads for House

Popcorn lung bill heads for House
By Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Tuesday it opposed a House of Representatives bill that would require federal regulation of exposure to a microwave popcorn additive linked to lung disease.

The chemical, diacetyl, gives microwave popcorn a buttery flavor and has been linked to bronchiolitis obliterans, or "popcorn lung," a disorder found in popcorn workers and possibly in one popcorn-eating consumer.

The bill orders quick action by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and is expected to come to the House floor for a vote on Wednesday.

"It's a travesty that OSHA has done nothing to regulate this chemical, while workers have fallen seriously ill and some have actually died," said Democratic California Rep. Lynn Woolsey, the bill's sponsor.

But the White House said in a statement that it would be "premature" to regulate diacetyl as proposed by Woolsey.

Her bill would require the Labor Department to develop interim standards limiting diacetyl exposure by workers in flavor manufacturing plants and microwave popcorn factories. The interim standard would be effective until a final regulation takes effect within a two-year deadline.

No similar bill has been filed in the Senate.

The Bush administration said it wants to protect workers, but regulators need more time to figure out the causes of the disease, how much exposure is hazardous, and control measures.

"The administration does not believe that (the bill) in its present form is the best regulatory approach for protecting workers," the White House said.

Sen. Mike Enzi said OSHA is taking the right steps in conducting a thorough review of the matter. "We need a science-based solution, not a hasty legislative quick-fix," said the Wyoming Republican in a statement.

The Food and Drug Administration said September 5 it was investigating a report of a man who came down with the life-threatening disease after eating several bags of butter-flavored microwave popcorn each day.

In April, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said workers at factories making food flavorings and popcorn run the risk of contracting the disease, which causes coughing and shortness of breath and steadily worsens.

ConAgra Foods Inc, maker of Orville Redenbacher and Act II microwave popcorn brands, said earlier this month it would drop diacetyl from its butter-flavored microwave popcorn in the "near future" to safeguard its employees.

Weaver Popcorn Co Inc, maker of Pop Weaver microwave popcorn, said in August it removed diacetyl from its microwave popcorn, in part to address consumers' concerns.

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Lawmaker says Rice interfered with Iraq inquiry

Lawmaker says Rice interfered with Iraq inquiry
By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A leading Democratic lawmaker on Tuesday accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of interfering in congressional inquiries into corruption in Iraq's government and the activities of U.S. security firm Blackwater.

Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman said State Department officials had told the Oversight and Government Reform Committee he chairs they could not provide details of corruption in Iraq's government unless the information was treated as a "state secret" and not revealed to the public.

"You are wrong to interfere with the committee's inquiry," Waxman said in a letter to Rice. "The State Department's position on this matter is ludicrous," added Waxman, a vocal opponent of the Bush administration's Iraq policies.

But State Department spokesman Tom Casey said there seemed to have been a "misunderstanding" over the issue and all the information requested by Congress had either been provided or was in the process of being provided.

Waxman said security contractor Blackwater, which was involved in an incident in which Iraqi civilians were killed last week, said they could not hand over documents relevant to an investigation without State Department approval.

But Casey said later Blackwater had been informed the State Department had no objection to it providing information to Waxman's committee.

Blackwater provides security for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and has a contract with the State Department.

The company was involved in a September 16 shooting in which 11 people were killed while Blackwater was escorting a convoy through Baghdad. The State Department is investigating the incident along with the Iraqis.

Waxman, who has called a hearing on Blackwater for October 2, released a letter his staff received from the security contractor's attorneys dated September 24.

"It (the State Department) directs Blackwater USA not to disclose any information concerning the contract without DOS (Department of State) preauthorization in writing."

Blackwater also urged the committee not to ask questions at the hearing that could reveal sensitive information "that could be utilized by our country's implacable enemies in Iraq."

Such information included the size of their security staff in Baghdad, weaponry and the operation of convoys.

Waxman also released a letter signed by State Department contracting officer Kiazan Moneypenny to Blackwater.

"I hereby direct Blackwater to make no disclosure of documents or information ... unless such disclosure has been authorized in writing by the contracting officer," wrote Moneypenny.

Waxman also complained Rice was refusing to testify at any hearings his committee planned to look at political reconciliation in Iraq, corruption or the Blackwater incident.

"We have offered to make available for testimony those officials in the best position to respond to the specific issues the committee has raised," said Casey.

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Bush: Kids' health care will get vetoed

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Bush: Kids' health care will get vetoed
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

President Bush again called Democrats "irresponsible" on Saturday for pushing an expansion he opposes to a children's health insurance program.

"Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed," Bush said of the measure that draws significant bipartisan support, repeating in his weekly radio address an accusation he made earlier in the week. "Members of Congress are risking health coverage for poor children purely to make a political point."

In the Democrat's response, also broadcast Saturday, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell turned the tables on the president, saying that if Bush doesn't sign the bill, 15 states will have no funding left for the program by the end of the month.

At issue is the Children's Health Insurance Program, a state-federal program that subsidizes health coverage for low-income people, mostly children, in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private coverage. It expires Sept. 30.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers announced a proposal Friday that would add $35 billion over five years to the program, adding 4 million people to the 6.6 million already participating. It would be financed by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1 per pack.

The idea is overwhelmingly supported by Congress' majority Democrats, who scheduled it for a vote Tuesday in the House. It has substantial Republican support as well.

But Bush has promised a veto, saying the measure is too costly, unacceptably raises taxes, extends government-covered insurance to children in families who can afford private coverage, and smacks of a move toward completely federalized health care. He has asked Congress to pass a simple extension of the current program while debate continues, saying it's children who will suffer if they do not.

"Our goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage — not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage," Bush said.

The bill's backers have vigorously rejected Bush's claim it would steer public money to families that can readily afford health insurance, saying their goal is to cover more of the millions of uninsured children. The bill would provide financial incentives for states to cover their lowest-income children first, they said.

Many governors want the flexibility to expand eligibility for the program. So the proposal would overturn recent guidelines from the administration making it difficult for states to steer CHIP funds to families with incomes exceeding 250 percent of the official poverty level.

Rendell said thousands of children will lose health care coverage if Bush doesn't sign the bill.

"The administration has tried to turn this into a partisan issue and has threatened to veto. The health of our children is far too important for partisan politics as usual," he said. "If the administration is serious about solving our health care crisis, it should be expanding, not cutting back, this program which has made private health insurance affordable for millions of children."

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Senate Republicans bar bill to restore detainee rights

Senate bars bill to restore detainee rights
By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate voted on Wednesday against considering a measure to give Guantanamo detainees and other foreigners the right to challenge their detention in the U.S. courts.

The legislation needed 60 votes to be considered by lawmakers in the Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats; it received only 56, with 43 voting against the effort to roll back a key element of President George W. Bush's war on terrorism.

The measure would have granted foreign terrorism suspects the right of habeas corpus, Latin for "you have the body," which prevents the government from locking people up without review by a court.

Congress last year eliminated this right for non-U.S. citizens labeled "enemy combatants" by the government. The Bush administration said this was necessary to prevent them from being set free and attacking Americans.

The move affected about 340 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. It also affects millions of permanent legal residents of the United States who are not U.S. citizens, said one of the sponsors of the bipartisan measure, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

"Any of these people could be detained forever without the ability to challenge their detention in federal court" under the changes in law Congress made last year, Leahy said on the Senate floor. This was true "even if they (authorities) made a mistake and picked up the wrong person."

"This was a mistake the last Congress and the (Bush) administration made, based on fear," Leahy said.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican opposing the measure, said lawmakers should not allow "some of the most brutal vicious people in the world to bring lawsuits against their own (U.S.) troops" who had picked up the detainees on the battlefield.

Giving habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees would "really intrude into the military's ability to manage this war," Graham said, adding that it was "something that has never been granted to any other prisoner in any other war."

"Our judges don't have the military background to make decisions as to who the enemy is," Graham told the Senate.

Congress eliminated habeas rights as part of the Military Commissions Act, which also created new military tribunals to try the Guantanamo prisoners on war crimes charges.

Congress was led by Republicans when the act was rushed through, shortly before new elections put Democrats in control.

Sen. Arlen Specter, another sponsor of the bill and a Pennsylvania Republican, noted that the right to habeas corpus was a protection against arbitrary arrest enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215.

Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments from lawyers from Guantanamo prisoners challenging the law to eliminate the habeas right.

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Senate Republicans block bill on Iraq combat tours

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Senate blocks bill on Iraq combat tours
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

Democrats' efforts to challenge President Bush's Iraq policies were dealt a demoralizing blow Wednesday in the Senate after they failed to scrape together enough support to guarantee troops more time at home.

The 56-44 vote — four short of reaching the 60 needed to advance — all but assured that Democrats would be unable to muster the support needed to pass tough anti-war legislation by year's end. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., was seen as the Democrats' best shot because of its pro-military premise.

"The idea of winning the war in Iraq is beginning to get a second look," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who led opposition to the bill alongside Sen. John McCain.

Webb's legislation would have required that troops spend as much time at home training with their units as they spend deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Members of the National Guard or Reserve would be guaranteed three years at home before being sent back.

Most Army soldiers now spend about 15 months in combat with 12 months home.

"In blocking this bipartisan bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated that they are more committed to protecting the president than protecting our troops," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Wednesday's vote was the second time in as many months that Webb's bill was sidetracked. In July, a similar measure also fell four votes short of advancing.

Democrats said they were hopeful additional Republicans, wary of the politically unpopular war, would agree this time around to break party ranks. It had already attracted three dozen co-sponsors including Republicans Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Gordon Smith of Oregon.

But momentum behind the bill stalled Wednesday after Sen. John Warner, R-Va., announced he decided the consequences would be disastrous. Warner, a former longtime chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had voted in favor of the measure in July but said he changed his mind after talking to senior military officials.

Webb later told reporters there was no doubt Warner's opposition threw cold water on the bill.

Hagel, R-Neb., said the White House also "has been very effective at making this a loyalty test for the Republican Party."

Of the 56 senators voting to advance the measure were 49 Democrats, six Republicans and Vermont Independent Bernard Sanders. Voting against it were 43 Republicans and Connecticut Independent Joseph Lieberman.

The vote "means Congress will not intervene in the foreseeable future" in the war's execution, Lieberman told reporters.

In coming days, the Senate plans to vote on legislation by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., that would order combat troops home in nine months. Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said his bill would allow some troops to remain behind to conduct such missions as counterterrorism and training the Iraqis; he estimated the legislation, if enacted, would cut troop levels in Iraq by more than half.

The Senate also planned to vote on legislation by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Reid, D-Nev., that would cut off funding for combat next year.

The firm deadlines reflect a shift in strategy for Democrats, who had been pursuing a bipartisan compromise on war legislation. But after last week's testimony by Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, Democrats calculated not enough Republicans were willing to break party ranks and support more tempered legislation calling for combat to end next summer.

McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee and a Vietnam veteran, said Webb's bill was a "backdoor method" by Democrats to force troop withdrawals.

"We have a new strategy. We have success on the ground," said McCain. Pulling out troops would spark "chaos and genocide in the region, and we will be back," he said.

McCain offered an alternative resolution that would identify equal deployment and training times as a goal, but would not mandate deployment restrictions. The resolution was aimed at peeling off Republican support and lessening the prospects of passage for Webb's bill.

That resolution fell five votes shy of advancing, in a 55-45 vote.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he would have recommended that President Bush veto Webb's legislation if it is passed. The bill could force the military to extend tours, rely more heavily on reservists, or not replace units right away, even if they are needed, Gates said.

Webb and his supporters say the bill provides flexibility to avoid those pitfalls, including a presidential waiver if Bush can certify to Congress that ignoring the limitation was necessary to national security.

Webb amended the bill, after consultation with Gates, to exempt special operations forces and give the military 120 days to comply.

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Greenspan: Bush, congressional Republicans abandoned fiscal discipline; put politics ahead of sound economics

Former Fed chair Greenspan criticizes Bush in book
By Mark Felsenthal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in a memoir to be released on Monday criticized President George W. Bush and congressional Republicans for abandoning fiscal discipline and for putting politics ahead of sound economics.

In his book, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," Greenspan said he was surprised Bush was unwilling to temper his campaign promises with fiscal reality once elected in 2000, as previous Republican administrations had done.

"Little value was placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term consequences," he said. The book was made available by its publisher, The Penguin Press.

"Much to my disappointment, economic policymaking in the Bush administration remained firmly in the hands of White House staff," he said.

Greenspan, now 81, was the second longest-serving chairman in the Fed's 93-year history when he stepped down in January 2006.

Praise has been heaped on the New York native and self-described "libertarian Republican" for overseeing the longest U.S. economic expansion on record.

Greenspan built his reputation as Fed leader with his calm handling of the stock market crash of 1987, the 1997-1998 Asian and Russian financial crises, and the economic turbulence that followed the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

But he has also come under fire for policies that some say led to bubbles in technology and housing. His successor, Ben Bernanke, is coping with a prolonged housing downturn and credit-market turbulence.

Greenspan's long association with Republican administrations and his reputation for independence add clout to his criticism of Bush and of other Republicans who led Congress until 2006.

TAX CUTS AND SPENDING

Greenspan said Bush's combination of tax cuts and spending on the military and prescription drug benefits, while not "unrealistic" in 2000 after several years of federal budget surpluses, was not appropriate with growing deficits that returned in 2002.

The former Fed chair said he urged Bush to veto a string of "out-of-control" spending bills, but to no avail. He was told the president wanted to avoid antagonizing Republican political leadership.

"To my mind, Bush's collaborate-don't-confront approach was a major mistake -- it cost the nation a check-and-balance mechanism essential to fiscal discipline," Greenspan said.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said on Saturday the administration conducted "rigorous" analysis and that tax cuts sped up the U.S. economic recovery after the 2001 recession.

"Because Congress worked with us, vetoes weren't necessary. We're not going to apologize for increased spending to protect our national security," Fratto said.

But Greenspan said Republican lawmakers sowed the seeds of their political defeat in 2006 by abandoning fiscal prudence.

"They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose," he added.

A consummate Washington political insider linked to former presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford before becoming Fed chairman in 1987, Greenspan also has been criticized for backing Bush's tax cuts plan before Congress in January 2001.

Greenspan said that position was balanced with a call for safeguards in case the fiscal situation deteriorated. But in his memoir, he ruefully acknowledged he underestimated how his words would be selectively interpreted.

"While politics had not been my intent, I'd misjudged the emotions of the moment," he said.

Fending off criticism that rock-bottom borrowing costs early this decade fueled the housing bubble that has caused a burst of foreclosures, Greenspan said the unusual risk of a downward price spiral was serious and had to be dealt with.

"We wanted to shut down the possibility of corrosive deflation; we were willing to chance that by cutting rates we might foster a bubble ... It was a decision done right," he wrote.

Looking at the U.S. economic future, Greenspan warned that to keep the inflation rate between 1 percent and 2 percent in coming years the Fed may need to force interest rates into double digits.

If the Fed succumbs to political pressure to keep interest rates low, inflation rates could rise to an average of 4 percent to 5 percent by 2030, and yields on 10-year Treasury notes would rise to at least 8 percent, he wrote.

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Bush: U.S. military role in Iraq will stretch beyond his presidency

Bush agrees to limited troop cuts in Iraq
By Matt Spetalnick and Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Thursday ordered gradual troop reductions in Iraq but defied calls for a dramatic change of course, telling war-weary Americans the U.S. military role there will stretch beyond his presidency.

Trying to secure more time to allow his strategy to work, Bush -- in a televised prime-time address -- embraced recommendations by his top commander in Iraq for a limited withdrawal of about 20,000 troops by July.

But Bush also made clear his view that the United States would require a major involvement in Iraq for years to come and said the Baghdad government needed "an enduring relationship with America."

That assessment will make Bush's speech an even tougher sell with anti-war Democrats in control of Congress and with the large majority of Americans opposed to his Iraq policy.

"Because of the measure of success we are seeing in Iraq, we can begin seeing troops come home," Bush said after Gen. David Petraeus delivered two days of congressional testimony that underscored deep partisan divisions over the war.

Speaking in a sober, measured tone, Bush acknowledged Americans' frustration with the war but insisted progress was being made. His 18-minute speech was the centerpiece of a public relations offensive aimed at blunting demands for a faster, wider withdrawal from Iraq.

The partial drawdown will roll back troop strength from the current 169,000 to around the same levels the United States had in Iraq before Bush ordered a major buildup in January.

That prompted Bush's Democratic critics to accuse the administration of trying to fool the American people into thinking he was responding to growing anti-war sentiment when he was actually making no fundamental change in approach.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi said Bush had announced "a stay-the-course strategy that puts us on a path for 10 years of war," and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean called it a "PR stunt to buy more time" for a failed policy.

ONE BRIGADE OUT BY CHRISTMAS

Bush said he had accepted Petraeus's proposal for the removal by mid-2008 of five of 20 U.S. military brigades now in Iraq, and that the pace of reductions would hinge on the level of success on the ground. He said 5,700 Marines and soldiers would be home by the end of the year.

U.S. officials refused to say exactly how many troops would be involved in the eventual withdrawal, though Petraeus had recommended that force levels return to where they stood before Bush boosted forces earlier this year.

An army brigade is typically made up of roughly 4,000 soldiers plus an unspecified number of support troops, which would make for a total withdrawal of more than 20,000 under Petraeus's plan. The so-called "surge" over the past eight months involved deployment of about 21,500 combat troops.

"The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home," Bush said. He said Petraeus would report to Congress again in March.

Bush cited Iraq's western Anbar province as evidence his strategy was making headway.

But underscoring the fragility of the situation, a Sunni tribal leader instrumental in battling al Qaeda in the area was assassinated on Thursday. Bush, who met Abdul Sattar Abu Risha during a visit to Anbar last week, praised his bravery in his speech.

Bush also acknowledged that the Iraqi government "has not met its own legislative benchmarks," and pressed it to do more to achieve national reconciliation.

He said U.S. engagement in Iraq would continue past the end of his term in January 2009, suggesting the job of ending the war would fall to his successors.

"This vision for a reduced American presence also has the support of Iraqi leaders from all communities. At the same time, they understand that their success will require U.S. political, economic, and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency," he said.

The drawdown would not be as fast or extensive as critics demand, but it could buy time for Bush to pursue the war by undermining a Democratic-led push for a broader disengagement 4-1/2 years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Some of Bush's fellow Republicans have also voiced doubts over his strategy. Republicans lost control of Congress in last November's election, largely due to public disenchantment over Iraq. Recent polls show Americans two-to-one against the war.

Democrats say the White House was putting the best political spin on what Pentagon officials have been saying for months -- that the buildup of forces in Iraq faces a time limit because of the risk of overstretching the U.S. military.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan, Deborah Charles and Kristin Roberts)

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Thousands March to End the Iraq Invasion; over 190 Arrested

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More than 190 arrested at D.C. protest
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer

Several thousand anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Washington on Saturday, clashing with police at the foot of the Capitol steps where more than 190 protesters were arrested.

The group marched from the White House to the Capitol to demand an end to the Iraq war. Their numbers stretched for blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue, and they held banners and signs and chanted, "What do we want? Troops out. When do we want it? Now."

Army veteran Justin Cliburn, 25, of Lawton, Okla., was among a contingent of Iraq veterans in attendance.

"We're occupying a people who do not want us there," Cliburn said of Iraq. "We're here to show that it isn't just a bunch of old hippies from the 60s who are against this war."

Counterprotesters lined the sidewalks behind metal barricades. There were some heated shouting matches between the two sides.

The arrests came after protesters lay down on the Capitol lawn in what they called a "die in" — with signs on top of their bodies to represent soldiers killed in Iraq. When police took no action, some of the protesters started climbing over a barricade at the foot of the Capitol steps.

Many were arrested without a struggle after they jumped over the waist-high barrier. But some grew angry as police with shields and riot gear attempted to push them back. At least two people were showered with chemical spray. Protesters responded by throwing signs and chanting: "Shame on you."

The number of arrests by Capitol Police on Saturday was much higher than previous anti-war rallies in Washington this year. Five people were arrested at a protest outside the Pentagon in March when they walked onto a bridge that had been closed off to accommodate the demonstration, then refused to leave. And at a rally in January, about 50 demonstrators blocked a street near the Capitol, but they were dispersed without arrests.

The protesters gathered earlier Saturday near the White House in Lafayette Park with signs saying "End the war now" and calling for President Bush's impeachment. The rally was organized by the ANSWER Coalition and other groups.

Organizers estimated that nearly 100,000 people attended the rally and march. That number could not be confirmed; police did not give their own estimate. A permit for the march obtained in advance by the ANSWER Coalition had projected 10,000.

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan told the crowd is was time to be assertive.

"It's time to lay our bodies on the line and say we've had enough," she said. "It's time to shut this city down."

About 13 blocks away, nearly 1,000 counterprotesters gathered near the Washington Monument, frequently erupting in chants of "U-S-A" and waving American flags.

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson, speaking from a stage to crowds clad in camouflage, American flag bandanas and Harley Davidson jackets, said he wanted to send three messages.

"Congress, quit playing games with our troops. Terrorists, we will find you and kill you," he said. "And to our troops, we're here for you, and we support you."

___

Associated Press writer Christine Simmons contributed to this report.

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No more Iraq funds without limits: key Democrat

No more Iraq funds without limits: key Democrat
By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The No. 2 Democrat in the U.S. Senate said on Friday he could no longer vote for funding the war in Iraq unless restrictions were attached that would begin winding down American involvement there.

"This Congress can't give President (George W.) Bush another blank check for Iraq," said Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, who has always opposed the war but until now voted to fund it.

"I can't support an open-ended appropriation which allows this president to continue this failed policy," he said in a speech at the left-leaning Center for National Policy.

Durbin, from Illinois, said he and Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin were working on limits that could be attached to the next war funding bill, such as limiting troops to conducting counterterrorism operations and training Iraqi security forces.

"I believe Congress should strictly tie future funding for the war in Iraq to a new role for our troops there," he said.

Congress this fall takes up legislation on Pentagon policy and spending, in addition to a separate war funding bill.

The White House is expected to ask for some $200 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the fiscal year that starts on October 1. Durbin said he thought the Senate would take up the war funding bill by early October.

Since September 2001, Congress has provided $602 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with about 70 percent of that going to Iraq. The most recent funding bill, approved by Congress in May, took months to pass. Bush vetoed the first version after Democrats attached a withdrawal timeline.

Although he was one of 23 senators who voted against the use of force in Iraq in 2002, Durbin said he was increasingly troubled by his votes to pay for military operations there.

"Now I just realized I can't do this. It's perpetuating a policy that is taking more American lives. We have to wind this war down," Durbin said, adding he would not use his leadership post to demand other Democrats follow his lead.

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How Hillary Clinton Can End the Iraq War, Speak for the American Military and Kill Osama Bin Laden

thehill.com
How Hillary Clinton Can End the Iraq War, Speak for the American Military and Kill Osama Bin Laden
-Brent Budowsky

First, let us cut through the propaganda, lies, disinformation, media misrepresentations and political cowardice that may well be leading Democrats, John Warner Republicans and so-called moderates to another shameless surrender to George W. Bush that will extend the catastrophe and tragedy of the Iraq war.

Here is a short list of those who believe that President Bush and Gen. David Petraeus are dead flat wrong in their obsession to continue the long-term escalation of the Iraq war:

1. The Joint Chiefs of Staff.

2. Admiral Fallon, head of Central Command, Gen. Petraeus’s boss.

3. Former NATO Supreme Commander and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Jones and the members of the commission he leads, who argue that American troop strength in Iraq should be reduced, that American forces should be redeployed, that the American footprint of being an occupation force in Iraq should be ended, and that the current escalation in fact will discourage, not advance, the political solution the “surge” was intended to bring about, but obviously has not.

4. Most and possibly all of the global command structure of the United States Army, which has been decimated by the Iraq war and the long-term escalation, and the United States Marine Corps.

5. The weight of opinion throughout the American intelligence community, which, despite political pressure, threats of retribution and political editing of intelligence reports, has produced one national intelligence estimate after another that have directly contradicted the views of the president and vice president.

The truth is, on the matter of reversing the escalation of the Iraq war, reducing American troop strength in Iraq significantly in the coming months, ending what has been one of the most corrupt and ill-considered occupations in world history, ending torture and closing Guantanamo, the views of the leadership of the U.S. military and the majority of the strongest critics of the Iraq war policy are indeed very much in line.

It is Petraeus, Bush, Cheney and their allies in the Congress who most substantially differ from all of the above.

My view of the matter, rejected by Democratic leaders and Republican leaders alike, from the beginning of this war until today, is that when we send our troops to war, we should never allow partisan or political considerations to be put above the lives of our troops and the honor and security of our nation.

History will judge harshly the current president and Congress, who from Sept. 11, 2001 until Sept. 11, 2007 have shared for their own reasons complicity in one of the greatest disasters in American military history, and have shared for their own reasons complicity in the international and domestic crimes of torture that violate cardinal rules of Americanism and international law that have been commonly accepted from the days of George Washington until the origin and execution of the Iraq war.

On one issue after another — there is no need to fully recapitulate them all here — things have been done in the name of God, country and the American troops that have in truth been opposed by a strong majority of American military leaders, and are so far out of the traditions of American values and American history that they have never, not once, been pursued by any American president or so submissively accepted by any American Congress on such a morally and militarily grotesque scale.

For Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), the current crisis offers a golden moment for her to act as a true commander in chief would act, to lead as a great president would lead, and to make her voice and her actions those of the true leader of the Loyal Opposition and — this is the central point — the authentic voice of the majority of American military leaders, American troops in combat, American military families and American veterans.

She should speak loudly, forcefully, and clearly the central truth of the debate, which is this: The overwhelming majority of American military leaders favor dramatic changes in the current Iraq policy and they, not Gen. Petraeus, are the true voice for what is best for our security, our country and our troops.

She should offer a comprehensive policy for a new strategy in Iraq that would follow the advice of the majority of American generals, and advocate the proposal of Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) for troop reductions of approximately 5,000 before Christmas 2007, and additional troop reductions to leave 120,000 American troops in Iraq by April 2008, at which time the president and Congress would confer before a new congressional vote to determine the feasibility of further American withdrawals at that time.

Under this plan, Sen. Clinton would offer an amendment that would zero out all new money from Guantanamo effective June 1, 2008, and would require either in the defense bill, or as condition for confirmation of a new attorney general an independent investigation of the Abu Ghraib crimes and any potential cover-up of those crimes.

Under this plan, Sen. Clinton would state during the September debate that when the Senate considers the supplemental war money vote, probably in October, if there is a majority of the House in favor of this binding proposal, she will lead a filibuster in the Senate in which 41 senators will put a stop to this escalation then and forever, once and for all, and force the president to negotiate in good faith with the Congress — or there will be no further funding for this war.

Finally, under this plan, Sen. Clinton would become the authentic voice of American troops and American veterans and demand that the Congress call on every American to meet the $500 billion of unmet, unplanned, unbudgeted long-term medical, health, research, financial, psychological, disability and veterans’ centers needs financed either through a Soldier Bond or a tax increase because this is what we owe our troops and vets as a matter of national patriotism and honor.

The sound you hear would be the applause of military families throughout America and, yes, veterans joining progressives in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary and a march to the next presidential inaugural with an iron commitment that it is high time and long overdue that Americans be treated like Americans, that veterans be treated with the respect due veterans, and that America once again act the way America should act, and has acted, until the presidency of George W. Bush.

In this program, Sen. Clinton would lead the Congress and the nation to reverse the catastrophe of the Iraq war and launch the war that should have been launched long ago, to unite the nation in the single-minded drive to kill Osama Bin Laden instead of the simple-minded and disastrous drive to do everything but that in the pursuit of a war that most generals now realize must be wound down, to achieve the best outcome.

Enough discussion of the United States being virtually blackmailed by an obstinate, disastrous president and an obstructionist minority of Senate Republicans into the elimination of the United States Senate from its constitutional mission that has been shamefully and catastrophically allowed since Sept. 11, 2001, a tragic day so brazenly and dishonorably exploited to create fears though lies and drive the country to a war that should never have been fought, whose major beneficiary was the criminal who killed our brothers and sisters seven years ago in lower Manhattan and Northern Virginia.

Sen. Clinton has an extraordinary golden moment to be the voice for the true America, the voice of our national honor, the voice of the majority of American military leaders, the voice of saving the United States Army from further destruction, the voice American troops and veterans who should never be asked to die preventable deaths, suffer preventable wounds, or endure preventable humiliation or injustice from politicians who wave the flag while they treat heroes like second class citizens and use their pictures in partisan ads while they shortchange wounded troops and tolerate scandals for disabled vets.

In a new book David Addington, the Chief of Staff for Vice President Cheney, is quoted as
saying: “We’re going to push and push and push until some larger forces make us stop”.

Senator Clinton should lead the Democrats, the Congress, the majority of Americans, the vast army of civilians and military leaders who hunger for a new day and new policy, and say to one and all: here it ends, now it stops, and in the coming weeks she will take the floor of the United States Senate and force a rendezvous with destiny.

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US Companies Flock to the Caribbean for Low-Cost, 'Nearshore' Services

ABC News
Forget India; Call Centers Boom in Caribbean
US Companies Flock to the Caribbean for Low-Cost, 'Nearshore' Services
By MICHAEL MELIA
The Associated Press

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico

In a global search for low-cost customer service, AOL considered call centers in India and other hotspots then settled on the tiny island of St. Lucia.

In choosing the Caribbean island, AOL a unit of Time Warner Inc. joined other U.S. companies that have made the region a new global hub for call centers.

Plunging communication costs, workers who relate easily to American customers and the region's famed hospitality are attracting American corporations, boosting the work force in the "nearshore" service industry in the Caribbean.

Jamaica is one of the leaders with about 14,000 employees in the sector. In the Dominican Republic, 18,000 agents, many of them bilingual, are handling calls in English and Spanish. Call centers dedicated to customer service have also opened in Barbados, Trinidad, and Dominica.

"The islands all seem to be really positive as opposed to the surly attitudes you have in some of the other places. It's cheery weather, it's cheery people," Robert Goodwin, the AOL manager who chose a call center in St. Lucia, said from his company's headquarters in Dulles, Va.

AOL still uses call centers in India and elsewhere for technical support and other services taking advantage of that country's large numbers of workers with technical and advanced degrees.

But the Caribbean is becoming increasingly competitive in the call center industry, with island governments offering tax and other incentives to lure companies to their shores. Jamaica, for example, granted call centers "free zone" status that allows owners to repatriate 100 percent of their earnings tax-free.

The Caribbean has taken only a tiny share of the market from still-hot India and the Philippines, but the impact is huge on islands with tiny populations, said Philip Cohen, an industry consultant based in Sweden.

In Montego Bay, a resort area on Jamaica's north coast that accounts for about half the island's call center jobs, developers have rapidly built thousands of concrete, single-family homes to accommodate the workers.

"You put a call center with 100 people in Barbados and that's a God's gift. With 100 people in India, you can't even see it," he said.

The industry owes much of its success to a telecommunications liberalization that began sweeping former British colonies in the Caribbean about six years ago. As new suppliers have challenged the monopoly of Britain-based Cable & Wireless PLC, lower prices allowed the region to compete.

The collections and call-center firm KM2, which holds the AOL contract in St. Lucia, has opened a site in Barbados and owner David Kreiss said he is looking to expand again as new telecoms install fiber optic cable.

"Whichever island they go to we follow," Kreiss said from his office in Atlanta.

The number of people working at Caribbean call centers has increased from 11,300 in 2002 to a current total of 55,000, with an annual economic impact of $2.5 billion (1.83 billion euros), according to Philip Peters, chief executive of Coral Gables, Florida-based Zagada Markets.

Peters, whose company surveys the call center industry in regions around the world, said the Caribbean has set itself apart with high service, a quality he attributes to cultural similarities and the influence of the tourism industry.

"They have a history of troubleshooting with Americans without getting upset," he said.

Large American companies including Verizon, AT&T, Delta Air Lines, AIG and Nortel have used Caribbean call centers, while often keeping operations in Asia or elsewhere in case of a hurricane or other disaster, Peters said.

While much of the profits go to U.S.-owned operators, the islands welcome the business to diversify their economies and counter high unemployment.

In Jamaica, where the vast majority of 18 call centers are owned by people outside the island, the starting wage is $2.75 (2.01 euros) to $3.20 (2.34 euros) an hour, according to Christopher McNair of Jamaica's investment promotion agency. "In Jamaica it's quite an attractive salary," he said.

In Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory subject to the federal minimum wage of $5.85 (4.28 euros) an hour, about 4,000 people work in call centers.

One leading advocate is Dominican President Leonel Fernandez, who said call centers are key to transforming his nation from a low-end assembly center to a knowledge-based economy.

"I see the digital economy as the best opportunity we in the Dominican Republic have ever had of leapfrogging to a new level of economic development," Fernandez told a business conference recently.

Many of the jobs involve simple, repetitive tasks, such as handling phone orders but governments describe the goal as gradually evolving to offer more demanding, expensive services such as technical support.

One Jamaican company, e-Services Group, began as a data entry operation but now also provides a range of support including help building Web sites and processing insurance claims.

"We've started with customer service, and as we proved we could do more, they've started driving more business in," said Patrick Casserly, the chief executive officer.

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Unexpected Loss of Jobs Raises Risk of Recession

The New York Times
Unexpected Loss of Jobs Raises Risk of Recession
By DAVID LEONHARDT and JEREMY W. PETERS

The job market took a serious and unexpected turn for the worse last month, raising the risk of a recession and putting added pressure on the Federal Reserve to move more aggressively to keep the ailing housing industry from infecting the rest of the economy.

The Labor Department reported yesterday that 4,000 jobs were lost from July to August, and the deepest cuts were in industries that are connected to the housing market, like construction and manufacturing. It was the first employment decline since 2003, when the job market was still struggling to emerge from the slump after the 2001 recession.

The jobs report all but guarantees that the Fed will cut its benchmark short-term interest rate when its policy-making committee meets on Sept. 18. A quarter-point reduction, to 5 percent, remains the most likely move, although a half-point cut now cannot be ruled out, economists said.

The unexpected weakness in employment changed the terms of the debate over the health of the economy. Before the report was released, most economists were predicting that the economy had added about 100,000 jobs in August and that growth had slowed but continued.

But now, the odds of a recession in the next year have risen, to 25 to 50 percent, economists interviewed yesterday said. A recession is typically defined as an extended period in which the economy shrinks, leading to a rise in unemployment and a drop in consumer spending and business investment.

“People need to start thinking about the housing market not just as some ring-fence problem which is off on its own,” said Nigel Gault, chief United States economist at Global Insight, an economic research firm in Lexington, Mass. “They need to start worrying about the health of the broader economy.”

Stocks fell broadly and sharply, as investors digested the idea that the economy had been weakening significantly even before the mortgage crisis hit financial markets last month. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down more than 1.5 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped almost 250 points.

The unemployment rate held steady at 4.6 percent in August, but economists said that was at least in part a fluke of the survey as more people stopped looking for work and were therefore not counted by the government as unemployed.

“If the economy is not headed toward recession, it is very close to one,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.

The Bush administration tried to defuse concerns that the weak jobs numbers hinted at a wider economic slowdown. In an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said the report was “not totally surprising.”

“There will be news that is not always good news,” he said. “But I feel quite strongly that we have a resilient economy.”

For months, Fed officials and Wall Street forecasters have been predicting that the housing slump would slow the economy and that other factors, like corporate earnings, growth in other countries and strong wage advances, would keep the slowdown from being severe.

That could still happen; in the economic expansions of both the 1980s and the 1990s, employment fell at least once before quickly reversing course.

“The financial turmoil and extended problems in housing put the risks for the economy clearly to the downside, no question,” said Mickey D. Levy, chief economist at Bank of America. “But there are also factors that suggest a longer period of slower growth, but not recession.”

One of the most worrisome signs in the jobs report released yesterday was the government’s revision to its employment data for June and July. The new numbers show just under 70,000 jobs being created in each of the two months. Initial estimates had been an average of almost 110,000 a month.

In 2005 and 2006, the average monthly job growth was slightly above 200,000.

The sharp slowdown this year suggests that some employers have already begun to see a downturn in their business and that others think one is on the way. With house prices falling in most of the country and oil prices having risen, consumer spending has slowed modestly in recent months.

State and local government agencies, many of them dealing with budget shortfalls connected to the housing slump, have also cut an average of 27,000 jobs a month over the last three months. But economists said the declines in government employment, especially in schools, may have reflected seasonal quirks that made the job market look worse last month than it was.

Hospitals, doctors’ offices, restaurants and retail stores added jobs in August.

But the bright spots were few. Employment in the finance sector, which includes real estate agencies and accounts for about 8.5 million of the country’s 138 million jobs, was flat in August, which could be a sign that the government numbers have not yet captured some of the mortgage-related job cuts now occurring.

The surveys that made up the Labor Department report measured employment from Aug. 12 to Aug. 18, when the credit squeeze and subsequent stock market turmoil were under way but not yet fully felt. Since then, some large lenders like Lehman Brothers have continued to lay off workers.

And just yesterday, two mortgage lenders, Countrywide Financial and IndyMac Bancorp, said they would shrink their work forces. Countrywide said it would cut as many as 12,000 jobs over the next three months, and IndyMac Bancorp said it would trim 1,000.

“There probably was not that much influence in the data from the credit shock,” said Richard Berner, chief United States economist at Morgan Stanley. “So I think more weakness in the economy is likely. The economy is clearly losing momentum.”

The extent to which that continues will determine the Fed’s course of action. The price of a futures contract tied to Fed policy indicates that the central bank will probably cut the benchmark rate, now 5.25 percent, to 4.5 percent by the end of the year. But a growing number of economists are saying that may not be soon enough.

Mr. Gault of Global Insight, who is forecasting a cut of half a point on Sept. 18, said it would send “an important message that the Fed sees there are real problems here, there’s a real threat, and it needs to have a response that’s commensurate to that threat.”

Although the unemployment rate held steady at 4.6 percent, the percentage of adults with jobs fell to 62.8, from 63 percent in July and a peak of 63.4 percent in December. The number of people who were neither working nor looking for work, and therefore were not classified as employed or unemployed, rose by almost 600,000 in August.

“That’s a sign of economic weakness,” said Scott Anderson, a senior economist at Wells Fargo. “Perhaps people just gave up trying to find jobs.”

The number of people with part-time jobs who said they would prefer to work full time has also been rising in recent months. In August, the Labor Department classified 4.5 million workers as “part time for economic reasons,” up from 4.3 million in July.

Wage growth, which often lags behind job growth, continued at roughly its recent pace. Average hourly earnings for rank-and-file workers, who make up about four-fifths of the work force, have increased 3.9 percent over the last year, to $17.50. Inflation has been running at about 2.5 percent a year.

Wall Street had awaited the jobs report because it was the most significant economic data released since financial markets began to tumble in early August. If the jobs report had shown merely lackluster growth, investors might have welcomed it as a sign that a Fed rate cut was all but certain and that the economy was still growing at a healthy pace.

The reversal in employment, however, was far different from the gain of roughly 100,000 jobs that Wall Street had been expecting, raising worries that corporate profits and wage gains could weaken as the market upheaval moves beyond the housing and financial sectors.

“The big question on all of our minds is whether the financial market contagion would reach the labor market,” said Jared Bernstein, an economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “And it appears it has with a vengeance.”

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A Tale of Two Parties

A Tale of Two Parties
Two gatherings in the nation's capital help point up the difference between theorizing about war--and fighting one.
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek

Sept. 7, 2007 - Washington was out in force--right, left and center--this week for a party to toast the publication of a new book by Mark Penn, the pollster credited with re-electing Bill Clinton in 1996 who is now the principle strategist for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “Isn’t he dangerously DLC?” asked antitax conservative Grover Norquist, referring to the centrist group that launched Bill Clinton’s candidacy. As fellow editors at the Harvard Crimson a couple and a half decades ago, Penn was Norquist’s soul mate, a right-wing radical in the eyes of the “Harvard socialists,” says Norquist with a laugh, implying that Penn is suspiciously centrist.

Wherever Penn is on the ideological spectrum, he’s positioning Hillary for a general election, bucking up her centrist credentials while moving her to the left enough on the war to quiet critics. His book is avowedly nonpolitical, a breezy look at societal ripples entitled “Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Big Changes.” It’s the latest blending of marketing and politics, a way to identify social changes and tap into them for a big payoff on Election Day.

Chatting with partygoers over the salmon and cucumber canapés, the mention of one trend in Penn’s book, “red-shirting,” triggered a burst of conversation. The phrase refers to the growing phenomenon of mostly upscale parents holding their children back a year from entering kindergarten.

At Georgetown Day School, a top-flight private school in Washington, there are kids 13 months apart in age in his child’s class, one father exclaimed. The practice originated in college sports with student athletes postponing enrollment to spread their eligibility to play over five years, when they’re bigger and stronger. High-achieving parents who struggled up the greasy pole of meritocracy to reach the finest institutions consider it a defeat if their children don’t make it to the Ivies, and they want to give them any edge they can. The extra year is supposed to give them a better chance to excel. It’s a crazy elitist trend that has little to do with the world most people live in.

Four blocks away from the Corcoran Museum of Art, where the Penn party was held, a very different event was unfolding at the Reagan Building. Actor James Gandolfini, best known as Tony Soprano, mingled with another cross-section of Washington for the premiere of a new HBO documentary, “Alive Day Memories,” about the wounded of Iraq, and the challenges they face. I slipped in late, right behind Paul Wolfowitz, one of the major promoters of the Iraq War and arguably its intellectual godfather. Seated to my left was a young woman, Robin Cleveland, whose husband, Tai, is in a wheelchair owing to spinal-cord and brain injuries he received in Iraq. “You have no idea how many people are suffering from this war,” she said. On my right was a young man in a wheelchair who had lost a leg and who knows what else. As I looked around before the lights dimmed for the film, I saw many more young men and some women with metal limbs and prostheses.

When John Edwards talks about the “two Americas,” he means the growing gulf caused by poverty, but the phrase could just as well refer to the divide between the people who do the theorizing about war and the America that does the fighting, the people who have the luxury of red-shirting their kids and the kids trying to reclaim their lives in hospital wards. The wounded from Iraq, now numbering more than 20,000, all have two birthdays--the day they were born and their “Alive Day,” the term of art given to the day they were wounded. Gandolfini interviews 10 returning soldiers, posing simple questions, keeping his back mostly to the camera as he lets them talk. Their stories carry the film. It’s hard to separate the character of Tony Soprano from the real-life Gandolfini. But the role he plays here is more like Dr. Melfi, Tony’s therapist, eliciting what happened, saying little and serving as a sympathetic sounding board.

The result is as compelling as it is graphic and hard to watch.

The therapists at Walter Reed make a big deal out of your “Alive Day,” says Sgt. Bryan Anderson, 25. “But from my point of view, we’re celebrating the worst day of my life. Great! Let’s just remind me of that every year.” Anderson recounts how he was smoking a cigarette right before the bomb went off. He knew he was hurt, and when he went to wipe the blood and the flies off his face, he noticed a fingertip was gone. He thought, that’s not so bad, as he continued assessing himself. A chunk of his other hand was gone. I can live with that, he thought. Then he saw that both his legs were gone. “What did you think then?” Gandolfini asked gently. “I thought, ‘Oh, Shit’.”

In any other war, Anderson would be dead. The number of wounded relative to casualties was 3 to 1 in Vietnam; it is 7 to 1 in Iraq, according to the film. Once a star gymnast, Anderson endured 40 surgeries and found the will to live in the hand surgeons saved. “I can still pick up a fork and feed myself,” he said. “Alive Day” brings the wounded home to America with unblinking realism. “Now the rest of the world can see,” said the woman next to me. And Wolfowitz? Give him credit for attending. “Fantastic,” he told reporters as he hurried out. “Very realistic, unfortunately.” If the sheer number of these wounded warriors among us don’t bring the “two Americas” together, shame on us all.

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Employers Cut Payrolls by 4,000 in August; economists were were forecasting payrolls to grow by 110,000

AP
Employers Cut Jobs in August
By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer
Employers Cut Payrolls by 4,000 in August, the First Drop in US Jobs in 4 Years

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Employers sliced payrolls by 4,000 in August, the first drop in four years, a stark sign that a painful credit crunch that has unnerved Wall Street is putting a strain on the national economy.

The latest snapshot of the employment climate, released by the Labor Department on Friday, also showed that the unemployment rate held steady at 4.6 percent, mainly because hundreds of thousands of people left the work force for any number of reasons.

Job losses in construction, manufacturing, transportation and government swamped gains in education and health care, leisure and hospitality, and retail. Employment in financial services was flat. The weakness in payrolls reflected fallout from a deepening housing slump, a credit crisis and financial turbulence that has made businesses more cautious in their hiring.

"I think a lot of businesses are moving to the sidelines to wait and see how things shake out," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.

The report was much weaker than economists were expecting. They were forecasting payrolls to grow by 110,000.

The drop of 4,000 jobs in August was the first decline since August 2003.

The surprisingly weak report provides the Federal Reserve with a reason to lower interest rates when it meets next on Sept. 18.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a speech last week, said the Fed stands ready to do all that is needed to keep the credit crunch that has rocked Wall Street from damaging the economy.

Economists increasingly believe the Fed will lower a key interest rate, now at 5.25 percent, by at least one-quarter percentage point on Sept. 18, its next meeting. The Fed has not lowered this rate in four years.

"Clearly the economy is struggling, and this is the kind of evidence that really makes a strong case for a Fed easing move," Mayland said.

Those with jobs, however, did see modest wage gains.

Average hourly earnings rose to $17.50 in August, a 0.3 percent increase from July. That matched economists' forecasts. Over the past 12 months, wages are up 3.9 percent. Wage growth supports consumer spending, a major ingredient for a healthy economy. If the job markets continues to lose steam, however, wage growth will eventually slow, too, economists said.

The modest wage growth could ease inflation fears, giving the Fed more leeway to cut interest rates.

On the payrolls front, job gains in June and July turned out to be smaller. The economy added 68,000 new jobs in July compared with 92,000 reported a month ago. For June, 69,000 new jobs were created, less than the 126,000 previously reported.

The 4,000 jobs cut in August are from both private and government employers. The government actually cut 28,000 jobs, while all private employers added 24,000.

Credit problems began with "subprime" mortgages held by people with spotty credit histories or low incomes. The problems have spread to some more creditworthy borrowers and intensified in August, unnerving Wall Street. In reaction, the Fed has pumped tens of billions of dollars into the financial system and lowered an interest rate that it charges banks for loans.

Credit is the economy's life blood. If it becomes more difficult to obtain, people might tighten their belts and companies might spend and invest less, including cutting back on hiring. That would crimp overall economic activity.

The economy, which grew at a brisk 4 percent pace in the April-to-June period, is expected to slow to half that pace in the three months from July through September. Against this backdrop, the unemployment rate is expected to creep higher, reaching close to 5 percent by the end of the year.

The unemployment rate, which is derived from a different statistical survey than the payroll figures, held steady as 340,000 people left the work force. Fewer people in that survey reported finding employment in August compared with July.

President Bush's handling of the economy has gotten lukewarm ratings from the public. Only 41 percent approved of the president's economic stewardship in early August, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Mindful of political backlash heading into the 2008 elections, the administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill have been scrambling to help millions of homeowners in danger of losing their homes and looking for other ways to limit the fallout.

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Judge strikes down part of Patriot Act

Yahoo! News
Judge strikes down part of Patriot Act
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer

A federal judge struck down a key part of the USA Patriot Act on Thursday in a ruling that defended the need for judicial oversight of laws and bashed Congress for passing a law that makes possible "far-reaching invasions of liberty."

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero immediately stayed the effect of his ruling, allowing the government time to appeal. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said: "We are reviewing the decision and considering our options at this time."

The ruling handed the American Civil Liberties Union a major victory in its challenge of the post-Sept. 11 law that gave broader investigative powers to law enforcement.

The ACLU had challenged the law on behalf of an Internet service provider, complaining that the law allowed the FBI to demand records without the kind of court supervision required for other government searches. Under the law, investigators can issue so-called national security letters to entities like Internet service providers and phone companies and demand customers' phone and Internet records.

In his ruling, Marrero said much more was at stake than questions about the national security letters.

He said Congress, in the original USA Patriot Act and less so in a 2005 revision, had essentially tried to legislate how the judiciary must review challenges to the law. If done to other bills, they ultimately could all "be styled to make the validation of the law foolproof."

Noting that the courthouse where he resides is several blocks from the fallen World Trade Center, the judge said the Constitution was designed so that the dangers of any given moment could never justify discarding fundamental individual liberties.

He said when "the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of liberty."

Regarding the national security letters, he said, Congress crossed its boundaries so dramatically that to let the law stand might turn an innocent legislative step into "the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values."

He said the ruling does not mean the FBI must obtain the approval of a court prior to ordering records be turned over, but rather must justify to a court the need for secrecy if the orders will last longer than a reasonable and brief period of time.

A March government report showed that the FBI issued about 8,500 national security letter, or NSL, requests in 2000, the year prior to passage of the USA Patriot Act. By 2003, the number of requests had risen to 39,000 and to 56,000 in 2004 before falling to 47,000 in 2005. The overwhelming majority of the requests sought telephone billing records information, telephone or e-mail subscriber information or electronic communication transactional records.

The judge said that through the NSLs, the government can unmask the identity of Internet users engaged in anonymous speech in online discussions, can obtain an itemized list of all e-mails sent and received by someone and can then seek information on those communicating with the individual.

"It may even be able to discover the web sites an individual has visited and queries submitted to search engines," the judge said.

Marrero's lengthy judicial opinion, akin to an eighth-grade civics lesson, described why the framers of the Constitution created three separate but equal branches of government and delegated to the judiciary to say what the law is and to protect the Constitution and the rights it gives citizens.

Marrero said the constitutional barriers against governmental abuse "may eventually collapse, with consequential diminution of the judiciary's function, and hence potential dire effects to individual freedoms."

In that event, he said, the judiciary could become "a mere mouthpiece of the legislature."

Marrero had ruled in 2004, on the initial version of the Patriot Act, that the letters violate the Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. He found free-speech violations in the nondisclosure requirement, which for example, disallowed an Internet service provider from telling customers their records were being turned over to the government.

After he ruled, Congress revised the Patriot Act in 2005, and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directed that Marrero review the law's constitutionality a second time.

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August private sector job growth lowest in 4 yrs

Reuters
Aug private sector job growth lowest in 4 yrs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private employers likely added 38,000 jobs in August, far fewer than analysts had expected and the slowest rate of growth in four years, a report by a private employment service said on Wednesday.

The report also revised July's private sector job growth downward to 41,000 from the originally reported 48,000 jobs. The employment report was developed jointly by ADP and Macroeconomic Advisers LLC.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 83,000 new jobs for August. The 38,000 result was the smallest increase since June 2003 and could reinforce market expectations for an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve.

U.S. stock index futures extended their losses on the report. U.S. government bonds, which are usually boosted by soft economic data, extended their gains.

The ADP result followed a separate survey by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. that showed planned U.S. lay-offs rocketed in August. The housing slowdown and subprime mortgage debacle led to record job cuts in the financial sector, the independent group said. Markets were awaiting the government's monthly employment report for August scheduled on Friday.

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Giuliani calls for more disaster prep

Yahoo! News
Giuliani calls for more disaster prep
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Writer

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday called for less federal control and more regional training to prepare U.S. communities for terrorist attacks and other disasters.

Visiting Mississippi, portions of which were devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, Giuliani pledged to prepare every community in the United States for such a disaster. And for those caused by man, as well.

"When you're preparing for a natural disaster, you're preparing for a terrorist attack," Giuliani said as he stood before a backdrop of firefighters' helmets and coats.

To be ready, states and cities need more regional training and coordination and less federal meddling, Giuliani said.

The former New York mayor proposes to make the federal Department of Homeland Security — created in response to the Sept. 11 attacks — more regional. He also said the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is now part of the Homeland Security department, should have a regional structure instead of a central one.

"We are vulnerable in our smallest community (and) in our largest city," Giuliani said.

He praised Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour for the state's response to Hurricane Katrina. Barbour was Republican National Committee chairman during the 1990s when Giuliani was elected mayor of New York.

After touring the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Pearl, Giuliani attended a $1,000-per-ticket fundraising luncheon at the home of a supporter in Jackson.

He then spoke to about 200, including two dozen trainers from the Mississippi Fire Academy, at the Rankin County branch of Hinds Community College. Giuliani was to attend another fundraiser Tuesday night in Jackson.

Among Giuliani's proposals are:

• Boosting local and state training and creating regional response teams like FEMA's Urban Search and Rescue Teams.

• Giving FEMA updated technology to track relief supplies and aid.

• Cutting off federal money for congressional pet projects, and instead mapping out long-term infrastructure needs such as bridge improvements.

Along with his plan, Giuliani also released a list of his high-profile homeland security advisers.

Some names, such as the group's leader, former FBI director Louis Freeh, and New York Rep. Peter King, have already been announced.

Advisers also include Robert Bonner, former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and others connected mostly to the Department of Homeland Security and city of New York.

Also on the list is Daniel Johnson, former homeland security director for Minnesota, site of last month's interstate bridge collapse.

Democrats criticized Giuliani's advisers, saying the list includes officials on the job during the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina as well as officials faulted by the Sept. 11 commission for being ill-prepared for the terrorist attacks.

"As mayor, Rudy failed to prepare New York City for 9/11," said Karen Finney, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee. "Now as a presidential candidate, he's proposing to create a homeland security team that includes many of the same folks who did a `heckuva job' on the Katrina response?"

In response, Giuliani spokeswoman Katie Levinson said: "More ridiculous comments from the DNC come as no surprise."

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Associated Press writer Libby Quaid in Washington contributed to this report.

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Calif. ballot proposal's GOP ties

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Calif. ballot proposal's GOP ties
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer

Lawyers behind a California ballot proposal that could benefit the 2008 Republican presidential nominee have ties to a Texas homebuilder who financed attacks on Democrat John Kerry's Vietnam War record in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Charles H. Bell and Thomas Hiltachk's law firm banked nearly $65,000 in fees from a California-based political committee funded almost solely by Bob J. Perry that targeted Democrats in 2006. Perry, a major Republican donor, contributed nearly $4.5 million to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that made unsubstantiated but damaging attacks on Kerry three years ago.

Hiltachk has been pushing a proposal to revamp the way California awards its electoral votes, a change Democrats claim would rig the 2008 race. He and Bell are the sole officers of a new political committee, Californians for Equal Representation, that is raising money to place the plan on the ballot in June.

Their success could hinge on whether they get the financial backing to collect more than 400,000 petition signatures needed to qualify the proposal for the ballot. And while Perry has not donated to their cause, his wealth and connections make him a potential financier for a drive that could cost more than $1 million. Running a statewide campaign would cost millions more.

Democrats are working to defeat the effort and already have lined up supporters such as Hollywood producer Stephen Bing.

Supporters say the vote-change plan could open a new era of fairness in presidential contests. But the law firm's link to Perry and other Republican candidates and causes will make it difficult to separate the proposal from partisan politics.

Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk is one of the most politically involved law firms in the state. According to a news story on its Web site, Bell keeps a life-sized cardboard image of President Bush in his office.

The push to alter the division of electoral votes in California — a change with national implications — "is nothing more than an attempt by right-wing Republicans to change the rules in ways that benefits them," said the spokesman, Roger Salazar.

The fight over California's electoral votes is shaping up as an important subplot in the national campaign.

Like most states, California awards all 55 of its electoral votes to the statewide winner in presidential elections — the largest single prize in the nation.

Under the ballot proposal, the statewide winner would get only two electoral votes. The rest would be distributed to the winning candidate in each of the state's congressional districts.

In effect that would create 53 races, each with one electoral vote up for grabs. President Bush carried 22 of those districts in 2004, while losing the statewide vote by double digits.

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Advisers tell Bush to stand pat on Iraq

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Advisers tell Bush to stand pat on Iraq
By MATTHEW LEE and ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writers

President Bush's senior advisers on Iraq have recommended he stand by his current war strategy, and he is unlikely to order more than a symbolic cut in troops before the end of the year, administration officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The recommendations from the military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker come despite independent government findings Tuesday that Baghdad has not met most of the political, military and economic markers set by Congress.

Bush appears set on maintaining the central elements of the policy he announced in January, one senior administration official said after discussions with participants in Bush's briefings during his surprise visit to an air base in Iraq on Monday.

Although the addition of 30,000 troops and the focus on increasing security in Baghdad would not be permanent, Bush is inclined to give it more time in hopes of extending military gains in Baghdad and the formerly restive Anbar province, officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to describe decisions coming as part of the White House report on Iraq due to Congress next week.

The plan they described is fraught with political risk. While Republican leaders on Tuesday suggested the GOP may be willing to support keeping troops in the region through spring, it is unclear whether rank-and-file party members who face tough elections next year will be willing to follow their lead.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters he would like to ensure a long-term U.S. presence in the Middle East to fight al-Qaida and deter aggression from Iran.

"And I hope that this reaction to Iraq and the highly politicized nature of dealing with Iraq this year doesn't end up in a situation where we just bring all the troops back home and thereby expose us, once again, to the kind of attacks we've had here in the homeland or on American facilities," said McConnell, R-Ky.

With Monday's back-to-back review sessions in Iraq, Bush has now heard from all the military chiefs, diplomats and other advisers he planned to consult before making a widely anticipated report to Congress by Sept. 15. Petraeus and Crocker are to testify before Congress on their recommendations next week.

The United States would be hard-pressed to maintain the current level of 160,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely, but Bush is not expected to order more than a slight cut before the end of the year, officials said.

Bush himself suggested that modest troop cuts may be possible if military successes continue, but he gave no timeline or specific numbers. Options beyond a symbolic cut this year include cutting the tour of duty for troops in Iraq from 15 months back to the traditional 12 months, one official said. If adopted, that change would not come before the spring.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday during a trip to Australia, Bush restated his view that decisions about troop levels should be based on recommendations from military commanders and noted that Petraeus and Crocker would be delivering reports soon enough.

"Whether or not that's part of the policy I announce to the nation ... why don't we see what they say and then I'll let you know," Bush said.

Adm. William Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, said Tuesday he saw signs of broad progress in Iraq.

"In the less than six months I've been in this job, I have seen a substantial change and it gives me some significant optimism that this place may just work out the way we had envisioned, or some had envisioned, when the tasks were undertaken," Fallon said in remarks to the Commonwealth Club of California, a public affairs forum.

A Pentagon official said Petraeus has not specifically recommended trimming tours by three months. Bush's troop increase will end by default in April or May, when one of the added brigades is slated to leave, unless Bush makes other changes to hold the number steady.

In an interview with ABC News, Petraeus suggested a drawdown next spring would be needed to avoid further strain on the military. Asked if March would be that time, he said, "Your calculations are about right."

Republican support could hinge on Petraeus' testimony next week. If he can convince lawmakers that the security gains won in recent months are substantial and point toward a bigger trend, GOP members might be more likely to hold out until next spring. They also might be more easily persuaded if Bush promises some small troop drawdowns by the end of the year, as was suggested to the White House by Sen. John Warner of Virginia, an influential Republican on security matters.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., returning from a weekend trip to Iraq, said Tuesday a small round of troop withdrawals might be the ticket to forcing political progress in Iraq. The position was a new one for the senator, who faces a tough election next year.

"I think the unmistakable message has to be sent to the Shiite leadership that there is no blank check for Iraq," Coleman told reporters on a conference call.

Also Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative and auditing arm, reported that Iraq has failed to meet 11 of its 18 political and security goals.

The study was slightly more upbeat than initially planned. After receiving substantial resistance from the White House, the GAO determined that four benchmarks — instead of two — had been partially met.

But the GAO stuck with its original contention that only three goals out of the 18 had been fully achieved. The goals met include establishing joint security stations in Baghdad, ensuring minority rights in the Iraqi legislature and creating support committees for the Baghdad security plan.

U.S. Comptroller David Walker said the GAO did not soften its report due to pressure from the administration and reached its conclusions on its own. Walker said Congress should ask itself what it wants to achieve in Iraq and can do so realistically.

"After we answer that, we can reassess what the appropriate goal is of U.S. forces," he said in an interview Tuesday.

Democrats said the GAO report showed that Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq was failing because Baghdad was not making the political progress needed to tamp down sectarian violence.

"No matter what spin we may hear in the coming days, this independent assessment is a failing grade for a policy that simply isn't working," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

The report does not make any substantial policy recommendations, but says future administration reports "would be more useful to the Congress" if they provided more detailed information.

___

Associated Press writers Anne Flaherty and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

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